Something interesting I found in an article about Anxious attachment

[Lz123]

Hi,

I've been reading about anxious attachment a bit just now and I found an article which had a paragraph or two which reminded me a lot about Sarno's writings in The Mindbody Prescription:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-freedom-change/201803/anxious-attachment-and-the-anger-paradox (Anxious Attachment and the Anger Paradox)

...adults with preoccupied attachment styles bring their unresolved anger toward parents from the past into their present adult experiences.

From a developmental perspective, inconsistent parenting in childhood makes it difficult to make sense of the parent’s behavior. And, if a child can’t understand why the parent is behaving in a certain way then she can’t predict how the parent will react in the future. If she can’t predict the future, then she can’t modify her own behavior to prevent painful rejections. Knowing that she cannot do anything to forestall being hurt, the anxiously attached child is left in a chronic state of feeling scared, anxious, and angry.

Sound familiar? Just thought I'd share. Let me know what you think

 

[Lizzy]

The article makes sense of my past and how I can be as an adult.

From the article:

"There is nothing to fix."

"It sucks! The truth is that this is a really crappy situation, it hurts, and it really sucks."

I am estranged from my parents because my dad is verbally abusive and my mom won't have relationships without him. They are estranged from quite a few people.

I tend to rewrite our history and make it more favorable towards my parents. I sometimes think about reconciliation, but it always ends with realizing that it would mean agreeing with my parents version. So I wrote a Post-It note that says:

Being in relationship with my mom and dad means implying that my mom is the problem and is the abusive one. I won't do that.

I wrote this within the last 2 months and it has helped, and the article gives a good explanation of why and how.

Thank you for posting this!

Lizzy

 

[BloodMoon]

This very much chimes with me from the article, i.e. "You can’t make sense out of other people’s non-sense." I've often been puzzled and at a loss as to why some people do the things they do and behave the way they have behaved towards me...To include some of the behaviours of my parents. Thanks for posting this up.

 

[HattieNC]

This is a brilliant article. Thanks so much for sharing!

I've been ruminating for almost two years about my husband's infidelity. I can't let it go (in my thoughts) -even though our marriage has vastly improved since his "confession." I've been trying desperately to understand his actions instead of focusing on why I NEED to understand/make sense of his actions. He says he doesn't know why he did it, and that's probably the truth.

The mantra of the preoccupied person therefore is: “If I can just come to understand this, what happened and why it happened, I’ll be able to let it go.”

If I choose to stay in this marriage, I need to stop trying to make sense out of the non-sensible.